I'm gonna show you how to make an absolutely delicious one-pan veggie lasagna, it's delicious,
it's full of color and vibrance. We're gonna be bigging up some beautiful veggies,
lovely sweet leeks with butter, we've got asparagus, we're gonna use frozen veggies because
I love frozen veggies, broad beans and peas which are really easy to get hold of. And the method
is really simple, I've stripped it right down so that you can make it all in one pan there's only
one thing to wash up, we get it in that oven and in about 40 minutes you have got something that
you're absolutely gonna love. So let's talk about it, first up we're gonna slice up a leek. So what
I do is I strip the outer leaf off, like this just get the knife and just run it down like that. So
what I want to do is just show you a way to clean these efficiently. We wash it away from the root,
water going down right? So over to the sink. Give it a little bit of a wash. Finely slice the green
part, and then as we get to the white part of the leek then we're gonna go from finely sliced to
little slices like that, right why? Because it's more kind of chunky and substantial. I want to do
it in a pan like a casserole style pan, sort of low-sided. I'm gonna go in with a knob of butter
and then a nice drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. I'm then gonna go in with the leeks,
and we're gonna sweat off those lovely leeks for about 10 minutes. So we've got fresh asparagus,
also I'm gonna big it up with frozen veggies. So I've got some frozen peas
and some frozen broad beans. With the asparagus I'll pretty much always just trim off the edge
of the asparagus and I nearly always turn that into a soup or a sauce. Right then, with this part
of the asparagus the stalks, just finely slice it like that. What I like to do is save the tips
to put in at the last moment. So in we go with the stalks and we're gonna cook that
down so it's really nice and soft. So in here I'm gonna add a nice pinch of salt, a nice pinch of
pepper, and we'll just let this simmer away. You can add a little swig of water to create a little
bit of humidity in the pan. So look let that sweat off now for about 10 minutes until sweet,
soft and delicious, and then I'll show you what to do next.
So look this has had about 10 minutes now. So traditionally you'd make a bechamel,
but that's another pan or two right, to wash up and deal with. But actually we can do it
all in the pan. I'm gonna put the flour into this pan. So two tables or 50 grams
of plain flour goes in. I'm also gonna put two teaspoons of English mustard in, then stir it in.
800 mils of milk, scrape the bottom of the pan. As that comes up to the boil let's talk about
frozen veg: maybe something you haven't got is broad beans, 300 grams of that we're gonna use,
then put 300 grams of frozen peas move it around, let's get that just simmering for five minutes.
While that's happening let me show you the herb in question, mint. Half a bunch of mint and
literally all I do is just rip off those top mint leaves, I'll use that for other things.
And I'm just going to fairly roughly chop the mint, it's gonna taste absolutely amazing, so stir
that in. Okay so I am going to be not traditional again by using parmesan because I love it - and
that is traditional - but I'm using some cheddar. Cheddar's an amazing cheese it's full of flavor,
and it melts and oozes in the most beautiful way, so 80 grams of cheddar and I'm gonna do the same
with parmesan. So get yourself a little potato masher and just mash it, just put your weight
onto it and you can feel the broad beans and peas popping. A little bit of love. Then I'm gonna go
in with most of the cheese right, not all of it, most of it, and the asparagus tips, right? And
then the curve ball of course is the pasta. So the key here is using fresh lasagna sheets, it's
brilliant you can get it in all the supermarkets and the fact that it's fresh means it cooks very
quickly and it's really elegant, silky, and very kind of luxurious. So I'm literally gonna grab it
like a pack of cards and tear it, and then all I'm gonna do is just dish out the lasagna cards
around and then just stir it through. This will be absolutely like a lasagna when you serve this at
the table right, we are not mucking about we're just getting on with it. So there we go another
little layer. So this will serve six people really nicely, so I think this is a really lovely
meal for any day of the week actually. So look all I do now 'cos we're done is turn the heat off, and
what I like to do you know just to be aesthetic is kind of have a nice layer of pasta on the top.
And then the last little flourish of love and care is just a little cheese so you get those
lovely crispy bits. So the last ingredient for a little flourish of texture, flavor and nutrition,
is almonds. A nice little handful of almonds. And what I love to do is just bash them up.
Have some fine, have some whole, have some cracked. And then I'll literally just let that
snow down on our lovely lasagna here. Almonds, a little kiss of olive oil, and then if you want to
as an optional extra get yourself a lemon and just a little bit of the zest - just a tiny bit right,
not the juice just the zest - will just give you a perfume and a lightness that cuts through. So
that's it. That is my one-pan veggie lasagna. That's now gonna go in the oven for 25 minutes,
that's all 25 minutes that's it, it'll be crispy, gnarly, blippy, gorgeous, comforting. And the
temperature is at 200 degrees celsius which is 400 fahrenheit, so in it goes. Right... little
clean down, and yes little clean down because it's just one pan, and then we'll serve it.
So the lasagna has had 25 minutes, it's looking and smelling amazing.
Look at that. Imagine that on the dinner table, absolute bliss.
Absolutely beautiful. One of the things that you can do which is a little bit of
an optional extra is put a little bit of pesto on the top, just little tiny bombs of it. And
of course you can make your own pesto, or if actually you go down the supermarket you might see
some geezer, you might not have seen him before. We don't want to use loads of it but little bombs
of pesto as you start serving this just mix up with the lovely creamy hot white sauce.
Just a little bit goes a long way. So look let's get our plates and let's serve up.
Let's portion a little bit up. What I like is you still get crispy bits from the lasagna like that
and, you know, you get the veggies but you also get the lovely creamy sauce which is absolutely
beautiful. So this will serve easily six people. Can you see the crispy bits at the side,
look at that. Stodgy, crispy, juicy. Maybe just a little bit of parmesan on top.
And that my friends is a beautiful one-pan veggie lasagna. Right let's have a little try.
Wow. Yum, yum, triple yum, so good. Crispy enough, soft enough, stodgy enough, cheesy enough,
crunchy enough, come on!